The areas
- Toolbar. The project title with its cover on the left, the Dynamics Mode button and the two Inspector tab buttons on the right. Right-click it for Customize Toolbar….
- Track list (the Sidebar) on the left. Your tracks on top, the Returns and the Master pinned below. See Tracks.
- Timeline in the middle: tracks top to bottom against a ruler of bars and beats. See Clips and Focus Mode.
- Plugin Strip along the bottom: the selected track’s effects as cards.
⌘3puts the keyboard there,⌘0back on the timeline. See Plugin Strip. - Inspector on the right: one tab at a time, with the Info Bar at its foot.
- Transport bar, floating across the window’s bottom edge: metronome, record, play, loop and the position in bars and beats and in minutes and seconds.
The Inspector
Files from your disks come in from the Finder or the Sample Library. Plugins are loaded from the Command Palette (Load Instruments and Effects) and sorted in
Settings ▸ Plugins (Plugin Categories). While an automation clip is open in Focus Mode, ⌘1 and ⌘2 switch that clip between drawing and LFO instead (Automation Clips).
The Tracks tab
The top row holds the track’s icon, name, M and S. Double-click the name to rename it; right-click it for Color, where Inherit gives a track inside a group the group’s color. If the track’s plugins add delay, a Latency row under the name shows the total in milliseconds, which is compensated automatically. Below the top row, the sections follow the signal:
With the built-in Sampler, the Instrument card shows the sample with Key and Poly rows; click it, or press
⌥X, to open the Sampler. On a sample track, drag the waveform in the Sample section onto the timeline for a clip of the whole sample, or right-click it for Change Sample…, Reveal in Finder, Convert to Instrument Track and Remove Sample. Group, Return and Master tracks put Mix right under the name. Right-click the empty area below the last section for Add Ducking and Add Return Track.
The Project tab
The Project tab has six sections: Info (cover, title and collections), Audio (the project’s sample rate), Key & Scale and Grid (Tempo, Key and Time Signature), Comments and Versions.The project title
Click the project title in the toolbar for Key & Scale and Grid in a popover, from any tab. The line under the title reads tempo and key, for example172 BPM · E Minor, and then the loaded version (v3) or edited once you change something.
The Info Bar
The bar at the foot of the Inspector names the control under the pointer and says what it does. It is on by default; press? or run Command Palette → Info Bar On/Off to hide or show it.